That said, if they charge for access, that's like being able to resell every single issue of Vogue all over again...

That's very true. I wonder how they're going to prevent people from screen capping and spreading it though? On the other hand, it is awfully convenient as a resource that you pay like $10 a month for. Lots of people would do that and not even care about downloading it if it wasn't super easy. Yeah, they could easily make $1-10M/year on that, not counting the ads.

Sorry, but it's sort of shocking that they wouldn't keep a database for themselves...

Well I'm sure in the past decade or two there is a database for those issues, but I am not surprised that the really old issues, which are the ones he mentions, are not in a digital database. They have hard copies of those old issues in an archive in the building, but not a digital database.... yet.

When second-quarter ad page figures were released earlier this year, magazine publishers breathed a small sigh of relief. After five straight quarters of industrywide improvement, it seemed publishers were slowly getting their groove back.

Not so fast.

Third-quarter figures released Monday show that ad paging took a turn for the worse, falling almost 6 percent compared to the prior year, according to Publishers Information Bureau.

Only a handful of fashion titles bucked the trend, with People StyleWatch up 48 percent to 331 pages. The dramatic increase can be tied to its July issue, a first for the magazine. Marie Claire posted a 10 percent boost, to 350 pages. Vogue and W also had some success, up almost 4 percent apiece, with 766 pages and 335 pages, respectively.

For the rest of the pack, it seems those typically bigger-than-normal September issues weren’t enough to salvage the quarter. Glamour, which reported that its September issue was the most profitable in its history, fell almost 13 percent to 384 pages and fellow Condé Nast title Allure wasn’t far behind, down 9.7 percent to 233 pages. Elle’s paging fell 8.5 percent to 556 and InStyle was down 5.2 percent to 656. Lucky’s paging continued to slide, down 4.5 percent to 294, and Harper’s Bazaar rounded out the pack, falling 4.1 percent to 387 pages.

Just in time for the release of Apple’s Newsstand section for iOS 5, Condé Nast revealed plans to launch Vogue, Bon Appétit and Condé Nast Traveler. “If you were in the mood to browse the app store for a magazine, it was impossible to do before,” said Monica Ray, executive vice president of consumer marketing. “Now there is a dedicated aisle and everyone knows where to go.” With Newsstand, Apple will continue to handle the transaction and the revenue share will stay the same, with about 70 percent going to Condé Nast and 30 percent to Apple. She declined to predict how much the subscription business could grow now that Newsstand has launched. “We have great hopes it will be a very robust business.” Vogue, Bon Appétit and Condé Nast Traveler will launch sometime before early 2012.

Azerbaijan hardly seems an obvious source of inspiration for a glossy magazine. For one thing, the country conjures up irrepressible images of Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat (who is in fact from nearby Kazakhstan), not least because in Cohen's film it is the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyeva, who appears in the credits as a stand-in for the real president of Kazakhstan.

Fittingly, it is Aliyeva's daughter who sits at the helm of a lifestyle magazine launched this week by Condé Nast, publisher of industry bigwigs such as Vogue , Tatler and Vanity Fair . Leyla Aliyeva's title Baku , named after the capital city of Azerbaijan, will showcase contemporary art, culture and fashion with an Azeri edge.

Baku has existed in a Russian-language edition since 2007, but from this week the quarterly will be published internationally in English. The launch is set to coincide with what editor-in-chief Aliyeva terms "an unprecedented period of revival" for the eagle-shaped territory tucked between the hulking landmasses of Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Indeed, if an interview with Tom Ford is anything to go by, Azerbaijan is on the up. Ford's menswear collection has been selling extremely well in Azerbaijan, prompting him to open a womenswear flagship in the capital city this autumn. He's quietly confident that his unashamedly indulgent designs will find favour in the Dubai of the Caspian region: "the Azerbaijani people have a vibrant cultural heritage and deep appreciation of luxury."

Editorial highlights from the magazine include a rather bizarre interview with Gérard Depardieu (who muses that "the percentage of the cabernet sauvignon grape in Azerbaijani wine could be reduced"); a balmy shoot by Vogue favourite Tom Craig shot against a Baku cityscape; and a feature on LA street artist Mr Brainwash, who claims to be the new Marcel Duchamp.

Azerbaijan's final caveat, however, has been overlooked by Baku: the Eurovision Song Contest will be held there next year. It could just be time to follow in the footsteps of Ford and jump on the Baku bandwagon.

November 25, 2011 will be start of the European invasion of the cult magazine Interview, which is headed by Alain Doletskaya. On this day in Russia will be released the first issue of Interview. Following the Russian, in early 2012, and will issue Interview Germany, whose editor is also Alain Doletskaya.